Of Time and Tides

It is maybe 20 minutes after sunrise, dead high tide on the West Passage of Passamaquoddy bay, at the southern edge of the Bay of Fundy. Despite the early hour the air is pleasantly warm, almost balmy, but when the wind blows just right, you can feel the cool breath of the North Atlantic, a short distance away. The air […]

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On the Delicate Art of Saying “Scram”

A few years back I had a customer–I’ll call her “Jen”–who became a problem. She hadn’t started out a problem. In fact she was a pretty good customer for a good long run. Lots of issues, paid well and on time, gave referrals. The only obvious wrinkle was that she was pretty demanding, borderline neurotic actually, about getting things done […]

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Professional Discourtesy

Not too long ago I arrived at work one morning to find a message in my Inbox from “Concerned Citizen,” who had written us through the Contact Us form on our website. Concerned Citizen claimed to be a MacIntosh technician working in North Austin. He said that he had repaired a computer that we had previously worked on, and damaged […]

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On the Care and Feeding of Digital Devices

A woman came into the shop the other day, obviously frustrated, even upset. She had two laptop computers that weren’t working. Both were older machines. One simply would not start, and the other had, apparently, a broken DC connector (the device that carries power into the laptop from an AC adapter.) One computer appeared to have a failed mainboard, making […]

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A Matter of Personal Responsibility

A few days ago I received a phone call from a young man who said that his Mac laptop was damaged and could I possibly fix it. I said, yes, probably, but needed to know a bit more about the problem before committing. It turns out that he had carelessly dropped the laptop from a height, severely damaging the case. […]

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